New ‘Flash’ Footage Teases More Grodd, ‘Flashpoint’ and S.T.A.R. Labs’ Biggest Mystery

Puns aside, The Flash will hit the ground running in its March 17 return, kicking off the first of nine episodes that will bring about some major changes to Barry Allen’s world. New footage and teases from creators at PaleyFest promise more DC villains and time-travel terrors to come, along with new speedsters in Season 2, and the biggest burning question of S.T.A.R. Labs answered.

Screening a new sizzle reel for the final stretch of The Flash’s first season (sadly not online yet), the newest footage showed plenty of excitement to come, including Tricksters, Weather Wizards, Bug-Eyed Bandits, A.T.O.M.s, additional crossover (Cisco loves Black Canary!), and the hunt for Reverse Flash. Perhaps most exciting, at some point Joe will come face to ape with Grodd, while Eddie Thawne’s sinister side comes out to play against Barry, even shooting two police officers.

In addition to the bevy of villains ahead, executive producer Andrew Kreisberg alluded to the complications of Barry’s efforts to travel through time, in the process teasing a major comic event (we’d guess closer to Flashpoint, if not Crisis on Infinite Earths just yet):

We’re definitely talking about the ramifications of time travel. There are episodes coming up where there is concern of certain events being changed in the past [that] would affect who people are and their relationships with each other. If the past changes, does the present change as well?

Not only that, but an upcoming episode will address concerns about the particle accelerator prison beneath S.T.A.R. Labs, the liberal use of which has proven a recurring question among fans (ourselves included). “We see a scene of how they are tended to,” said Kreisberg, to which Greg Berlanti added, “We deal with the implications of them being judge and jury by the end of the year.”

However the end of the year shakes out, producers also teased the possibility of introducing other comic speedsters in Season 2, notably that of future Flash Wally West, who himself will likely prove tied to Iris’ absentee mother, a thread also promised to gain traction in an upcoming episode.

We’ll post The Flash’s PaleyFest sizzle reel if it goes online (the rest of the panel is below), while Barry’s return will end up “Out of Time” this coming Tuesday. What other major comic elements should The CW incorporate into the series before long?